Forever and Always (31 page)

Now she doubted she'd ever breathe normally again. It looked like a weapon. Surely it was impossible she could accommodate it.

“You can touch me if you're careful,” Logan whispered.

There was a brief struggle with ingrained inhibitions doing battle with basic need. Need won out. Her hand moved forward until she touched him. He was warm and amazingly soft yet so hard he was nearly rigid.

“I've never been this eager before,” Logan murmured. “I don't know how long I can hold out. You can't imagine how beautiful you are.”

Logan obviously didn't know how beautiful he was. Sibyl didn't know how a man who'd been so sick could be so vibrantly alive.

“I can't be the only one naked,” Logan said. “I've spent so many nights dreaming of what you would look like I can hardly wait to see how close I came.”

Sibyl was reluctant to give up her exploration of Logan's body, but his hands on her destroyed her concentration. She could only think of what he was doing to her. Up until now, she'd never experienced anything but youthful fumbling and the nearly impersonal union of two bodies in a ritual that felt like a surrender to a requirement of being married. Naomi and Laurie had told her everything was different when the two people were in love, that it was an expression of love that transcended words, but she found it hard to imagine. She loved Logan and he loved her, so she wondered if it could be that way for her.

The feel of his hands on her body made her skin ultra-sensitive. His feathery touch left trails of fire across her shoulders and down her arms that caused her to shiver with delight and anticipation. If merely touching her arms could create such a sensation, what would more intimate contact do? When Logan's hands cupped her breasts, she found out.

His hands were cold and hot, his skin rough and soft, his touch firm and gentle. She felt uneasy yet eager, fearful yet confident, cowardly yet courageous. Never had she experienced so many contradictions. When Logan slipped her shift under her and let it drop to the floor, she felt panic.

Would he find her as beautiful as he dreamed she would be? Would she be as desirable as the women in his past? Would she do something—or
not
do something—that could destroy his love for her?

His hands on her breasts were making it hard for her to think. When he took her nipple into his mouth, she ceased to be able to think at all. She could only experience the flood of sensations that threatened to overwhelm her. She fought to keep her wits about her. If this was going to be the most incredible experience of her life, she didn't want to miss one second of it.

It shocked her to find that her hands had gone to the back of Logan's head, pressing him more firmly against her, but she was feeling a need that had taken control of her. She didn't panic when he nipped at her with his teeth or laved her with his tongue. It merely fed the fiery need that was gradually consuming her. There was no longer space in her mind for fear, for reluctance, for holding back. She wanted more. She could hear herself beg for it. She didn't know what that
more
might be, but she knew it was there. At last she was beginning to understand.

Their bodies pressed hard against each other while they shared a kiss the likes of which Sibyl had never dreamed was possible. The emotional riches of Logan's kiss penetrated deep inside her and opened up hidden treasures of love and warmth and need and giving and still more Sibyl couldn't name. Her soul was opening for the first time. Nourishment had reached a part of her that had been starved until it had come close to withering into a small, hard knot of insignificance. She was revitalized. Even more than that, she was infused with a rainbow of emotions and a breadth of understanding that had been beyond her grasp until now.

Yet nothing could put her beyond the effect of Logan's nearness or her body's response to his touch. It was like a fire that didn't burn, a flame that didn't scorch, but there was nothing cool about it. She felt ablaze with desire that would not be reined in or controlled. The heat of his erection against her abdomen stoked a fire in her belly that spread through her with the speed of a conflagration. When his lips deserted her mouth and found their way once more to her breasts, it threatened to consume her.

“I didn't think it was possible, but you're more beautiful than I dreamed,” Logan murmured. “I thought I knew what it was like to be with a woman, but I had no idea anything like this was possible.”

Neither had she, but she couldn't summon the words to tell him. He was moving down her body, his lips and tongue leaving trails of desire over her skin, stoking the fire in her abdomen to greater intensity. His hands moved down her back, over her hips, and along her thighs. She felt enmeshed, ensnared, entangled until she couldn't separate his body from her own. The fires kindled in their separate bodies flamed higher and wider until they merged into a single inferno of need and desire so powerful she could think of nothing but to feed it until it consumed her.

Logan touched her between her legs and a bolt shot through her with the force of a lightning strike. Was that his finger? No, it was his tongue! Shock and amazement were followed by an indescribable feeling that reduced her brain to mush. Her body writhed against him, which only drove him deeper inside her. Could this be real? How was it possible that her body could overpower her mind, evaporate all conscious thought? It had turned her into its slave, desirous of nothing more than complete subjugation to her desires.

When Logan backed away and moved up her body, she felt like she'd been pulled from a boiling cauldron and plunged into icy water.

“I'm going to enter you now,” Logan murmured. “Let me know if anything is uncomfortable.”

His abandoning her body was uncomfortable. The loss of being caught up in delight so intense it was beyond her imagination was uncomfortable. The feeling that she had been transported to the doorway of unimagined rapture only to be denied entrance was uncomfortable.

“This will be better than anything,” he promised.

How could she believe him? It had never been more than tolerable with Norman.

“We love each other,” Logan told her. “That will make all the difference.”

She wanted to believe him, she
tried
to believe him, but it didn't seem possible.

Still, his kisses could make her forget everything else. They claimed more than her mouth. They demanded all of her, a willing sacrifice on her part.

“I'll go slowly.”

She didn't want
slow
. She wanted everything, and she wanted it now. She wanted it so powerful and overwhelming that everything that had gone before would be obliterated from her memory. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her with all her might. She felt him begin to enter her. Impatient with his progress, she thrust her body against his, driving him deep inside her.

She gasped at the feeling of fullness, of being impaled by a velvet sword. Galvanized by the feeling of being physically joined with Logan, she fell away then rose to meet him.

“So that's how you want it,” Logan said.

“Yes!” It was a sigh of fulfillment, a plea for more, and a challenge he had to meet.

“I didn't know you would be so eager.” His voice was rough with desire.

“Neither did I. I don't know what's gotten into me. I've never been like this.”

“I think you're seeing your real self for the first time.”

She didn't know, and right now she couldn't find the energy to care. She only wanted more. She held him closer, kissed him harder, and encouraged him to reach places inside her that had never been touched before. As his rhythm increased, so did hers. When the waves began to build inside her abdomen and spread to the rest of her body, she threw herself against him, wrapped her legs around him, pulled him toward her depths. Something incredible was just out of reach. If he could get her just a little bit farther, something unbelievable would happen.

Yet when it did, she was unprepared for the impact. Her entire being was transformed into one enormous pulse of throbbing energy. This fusion of lust and need and naked desire coiled itself around her like a cocoon that separated her from her corporeal being. In this moment, nothing existed but the two of them joined in the throes of a passion greater and more wonderful than she could have imagined. They rose and fell together in perfect symmetry. Sibyl felt like they were floating, drawn toward a place in time where only they existed.

Yet even as she felt removed from substance and form, the forces building inside her brought her back to earth. The need became so real, so tangible, that she could follow its movement through her body until every part of her had merged into a single driving desire for fulfillment. And that fulfillment could only come from Logan.

She attacked him with a fierceness born of desperation, driving him deeper with every thrust. Her nails tore at his skin without regard for his pain. She thought she heard his breath coming in harsh gasps only to realize she was hearing her own breathing. His frantic movement was hers as well. They were nearing the precipice together. As they did so, his movement became erratic, his body rigid. A moment later, movement and breathing stopped altogether. Then she felt the heat of his seed deep inside her.

That's when she went over the precipice and into the abyss.

Sibyl lay awake long after Logan had fallen asleep. Her heartbeat, though steady, was too strong to allow for sleep. Disbelief kept her brain spinning. Tender nerve endings amplified every feeling. She was alive in ways that had never been breached before. She was so acutely conscious of her physical nature that she kept touching herself to make sure her body was unchanged because everything else about her had undergone a transformation. It didn't seem possible that there wouldn't be some outward manifestation of the inward changes, but there were none. She'd even gotten out of bed and checked her reflection in the mirror.

But when she asked herself what changes she had expected to see, the only answer she could come up with was that she felt like a different person. She now knew what it was like to love and be loved. Love had nourished her soul and her body. Not since she was sixteen had she felt so excited about the future. She was impatient for the night to be over and the day to dawn. Everything about her life was new, exciting, filled with anticipation. She couldn't wait to get started.

* * *

Logan was going to live, and that put a different complexion on everything. It didn't affect his love for Sibyl or his desire to marry her, but every decision he'd made since leaving Chicago had been based on the assumption that he would die within a few months. Now that wasn't going to happen, so how did it affect everything else?

He supposed the first question was what did he want to do about his business and whether that would require him to return to Chicago. Did he want to go back? Other than work, what did he have there to draw him back? He knew hundreds of people—business associates, competitors, social acquaintances, and casual friends—but none of them were the kind of friends who were necessary to his life and happiness. Other than some of the men who worked for him, he couldn't think of a single person he'd missed in the months he'd been gone. If he didn't go back, what would he do about the company he and his father had worked more than twenty years to build? He couldn't just turn his back on it. It represented too much of his life. Besides, creating that company had been his father's lifelong ambition. One of the last things his father talked about before he died was what he thought Logan could do to make the company bigger and stronger. Logan had realized long ago that his father had never married because he didn't love any woman as much as he loved his work.

But if Logan went back to Chicago, would Sibyl go with him? Would she be happy if she did? Her life was closely tied to her friends and family. She loved them so deeply it would be like asking her to divide her soul. She wouldn't know anyone in Chicago, nor would she have anything in common with the people he knew. More than that, he was certain Bridgette would do everything in her power to make sure society turned its back on her. How could he do that to the woman he loved?

And what about his brothers? He had just found them and was looking forward to becoming part of their lives, but there was no question of them moving to Chicago. Could he turn his back on them?

Fortunately, he didn't have to decide right away. He would talk to Sibyl and his brothers. They might have some ideas. They knew more about Arizona than he did. He turned to Trusty, who'd been watching him as he got dressed.

“I haven't forgotten about you,” he told the dog, “but I doubt you'd like Chicago. You're not fashionable enough, and you're too big to be a lap dog.”

Trusty thumped his tail and whined softly.

“I guess you can't make up your mind either. Your tail says yes, but your whine says no.”

That was very much how he felt about Chicago. It had been his home for most of his life. He'd never felt at home there, but that was probably his fault. He'd been too busy working to give it a chance.

* * *

Sibyl knew something was wrong the moment Logan stepped through the kitchen door. “What's wrong?” she asked.

Logan looked startled. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”

“He doesn't look sicker to me,” Kitty told her mother.

“He looks healthier than I've ever seen him,” Sibyl told her daughter, “but he's worried about something.”

“Are you worried about Trusty?” Kitty asked. The dog followed on Logan's heels.

“I'm not worried about Trusty,” Logan told Kitty, “but the doctor says I'm going to get well. I hadn't planned on that.”

“Aren't you glad you're going to get well?” Kitty asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Then there's nothing to worry about. I'll take Trusty out. Mama said we had to wait for breakfast until you got up.”

There were times when Sibyl wished she had her daughter's black-and-white view of the world. It would make decision-making so much easier. When the door closed behind Kitty and Trusty, Sibyl said, “Now you can tell me what's bothering you.” The only thing that had changed was that they had made love. She was petrified that was the problem.

Logan rounded the table, took the spoon from Sibyl's hand, and put his arms around her. Putting his hand under her chin, he tilted her head up until she was looking directly into his eyes. Then he kissed her. Sibyl felt much of her tension ease, but not all of it. She knew something was wrong, and a kiss wasn't going to change that.

“You look especially lovely this morning,” Logan said. “It seems that making love agrees with you.”

Sibyl couldn't believe she was blushing, but she was. “That's not something I'm used to talking about—certainly not at the breakfast table.”

“Then that's something we have to change.”

“Not as long as Kitty is within earshot.”

Logan grinned. “Okay, but I love you every hour of the day, and I want to be free to talk about it.”

“Love and sex are two different things.”

“Not in my mind.”

She could tell he knew he'd made a mistake as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but she couldn't resist the chance to tease him. “If you've loved every woman you've ever had sex with, how far down the line does that put me? And if you mention Bridgette's name, you can leave my house right now.”

Logan wasn't taken in. “Love and sex are the same only with you. With everyone else, it was just scratching nature's itch.”

“Did we scratch your itch last night?”

Logan burst out laughing. “Not so much that it can't use a little more scratching.”

Sibyl laughed but sobered quickly. “You're not going to avoid answering me. Something has changed since last night. What is it?”

Logan led her over to the table, and both sat down. “Everything I've done in the last several months, every decision I made, was based on the expectation that I would be dead before the end of the summer. Knowing that I might live has changed everything except that I love you and want to marry you.”

Sibyl breathed a sigh of relief. As long as Logan still loved her, everything else could be worked around. “As long as you still love me, we can figure out everything else. Do you want to go back to Chicago?”

“I haven't had time to think about it, but that's where the company my father spent his life building is. On the other hand, I've just found my brothers. I want to get to know them, to become part of their lives, but it's out of the question that they would want to move to Chicago. I'd certainly never ask it of them. I've loved being in Cactus Corner, but what would I do if I stayed here? You don't need me at the bank. Besides, it's
your
bank. I want you to run it by yourself.”

Sibyl laughed. “If Norman knew I was running his bank, he'd rise from his grave. Seriously, we could run the bank together, but I can tell that you want your own business. You're used to being in control. It would be hard to work for a boss.”

“I worked for my father until he died. It would be hard to find a more demanding boss than he was.”

“Maybe, but he's dead and you've grown used to being in charge. I understand, but I feel the same way. I'd never want to go back to doing nothing more complicated than figuring out what to make for supper. Things have changed so suddenly you haven't had time to figure out what you want to do—but you will.”

“There's one more thing, and it can't be
figured out
. I'm not the man everybody thinks. I'm not a brave hero who scoffs at danger. I knew I could be shot when I faced those bank robbers. I was certain I'd end up a mangled bunch of bones when I tried to stop the runaway horses, but I didn't care because I was going to die anyway. If it happened sooner than expected, I'd be spared a lot of suffering. I'm no braver than anyone else. I certainly can't compare to Colby.”

Sibyl had already faced the possibility that Logan might want to return to Chicago, but she hadn't thought about how he would see himself, because he was a real hero to her.

“That's ridiculous. Are any of those stories you tell Peter true?”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. You forget I went down the Santa Fe Trail, so I know how dangerous it is. You and your father did it dozens of times, facing Indians, bandits, and terrible storms. It takes lots of courage to do something like that.”

“There were other men along. I didn't have to depend on myself.”

“Did anyone take over your responsibilities for the safety of the group? Did you wait in your wagon until it was safe to come out?”

“Of course not! What kind of coward do you think I am?”

Sibyl reached across the table to take his hand. “I think you're the bravest man I've ever met. Okay, one of the
two
bravest men I've ever met. You might have thought a second or two longer before facing four gunmen, but you would have done it. And you'll never convince me you wouldn't have tried to stop the runaway horses, not with children playing in the street.”

“I suppose I would have done those things, but I would have felt differently about it. People can't expect me to keep taking chances with my life. I have you and Kitty to think about. Just the idea of missing one minute of the rest of your life gives me cold chills.”

Sibyl squeezed his hand. “As long as you feel like that, you have nothing to worry about.”

Kitty and Trusty came in from outside. The dog went to his bowl of water and drank. “That woman is coming,” Kitty told her mother.

Sibyl knew
that woman
referred to Bridgette Lowe. “Are you sure? She's never come this early before.”

“If you don't believe me, ask Peter. He threw a stick at her when she walked by. She called him a name. It wasn't nice.”

Sibyl stood and brought Logan to his feet. “She's all yours. I can't put up with her this early in the morning.”

“I want you to go with me. I'm going to tell her that we're going to be married.”

“You are?” Kitty asked. “Why didn't you tell me? I've been asking for ages.”

“I'm sorry,” Logan said to Kitty. “It would have been unforgivable of me to tell Bridgette before I told you. But I have to tell her before we tell anyone else. We were engaged to be married.”

“Trusty doesn't like her.”

Bridgette felt the same way about him. Watching them together was the only pleasure Sibyl found in her visits. Trusty would move to Logan's side and growl if Bridgette attempted to approach him. Bridgette disliked dogs in general, but particularly mutts like Trusty. She always said she couldn't understand why Sibyl allowed him in the house.

“We'll keep Trusty in the kitchen with us while we have breakfast. Maybe she'll be gone by the time we're done.”

“You're really going to make me do this by myself, aren't you?” Logan asked.

“I'm glad she's not really related to you because I wouldn't want to dislike your kinfolks that much.”

“Put your fingers in your ears,” Logan warned. “If you can still hear her screaming, hum really loud.”

Kitty giggled, and Sibyl tried not to smile. She was about to get everything she wanted. She could afford to be charitable.

* * *

Bridgette was surprised she didn't fall down in a screaming fit. She probably would have if she hadn't been sitting down. Logan couldn't be doing this. It was insane. If he married that woman, he would regret it for the rest of his life. She couldn't let him make such a fool of himself, but she had to control her anger. Logan had always been difficult to manage. Despite her beauty, he'd always been annoyingly indifferent to her attempts to influence him by cajolery, flattery, or flirting with other men. She'd learned from the first that pouting would send him straight out the door with a heartless request to let him know when she was in a better humor. It took all of her self-control to speak in a voice that sounded just shy of hysterical.

“Do you think you've had enough time to think this through properly? After all, you've only known her”—Bridgette couldn't bring herself to use Sibyl's name—“for a short time. And you've been very sick the whole time.”

“I haven't been so sick that I couldn't tell I was falling in love with her. I've wanted to marry her for weeks. I didn't say anything because I thought I was dying, but now that I'm going to get well, there's no reason to hold back.”

Why wasn't he dying? Why wasn't he already dead? James said he'd given him enough medicine to kill him several times over, yet here he was looking like he really was getting better. She had to find a way to get him to take his medicine again. “I'm glad the doctor thinks you're going to recover, but it might be dangerous to put too much faith in his opinion. After all, if he were a really good doctor, he wouldn't be in this place.”

“I have faith in him.”

“That's because he's telling you what you want to hear. Now that he knows you're rich, he might be hoping you'll take him back to Chicago and help him set up a practice.”